Recently in Learning objects Category
One of the most useful of interactions to involve students is drag and drop. I have written a work in progress paper ion this for the University of Derby's online Learning Journal Response. The paper "Learning objects - drop and drag interactions" demonstrates a number of ways that I have used drag and drop to develop learning materials.
An example I have online is the use of drag and drop to demonstrate additive colour mixing. Another one demonstrated here with a movie file is the use of drag and drop to show support learning of photographic composition.
There is an aspect to designing and building interactive learning objects that over complicates leading away from simple learning objectives. A learning objective or learning outcome for module may require a more complex design but when you break a module down to individual lectures and then down to individual points in a lecture then these require simple interactive elements that put across single concepts or ideas or parts of ideas.
These are more likely to be the single photograph or two side by side, the rollover comparing photographs or building a diagram sequentially, the drag and drop, the single question about something. Here the learning activity should be simply defined.
The lecture or learning sequence should be a carefully designed experience for the learner made up of individual snippets of learning that build up to a whole. If an activity or object is overcomplicated the learner will not know what they are meant to do with it.
An example of a learning object is my use of stop start sequence to highlight problems of naming for changes in words associated with colour in photography. Black body radiator
The creation of learning objects is not just about putting together a flash object or photograph together with metadata and text to explain it. It is about how the object is used or in many cases how many ways can the object be used. After all I can use a series of photographs to demonstrate how to take a series of photographs over time year on year but these could also show changes in vegetation, growth or development.
Above all we need learning objects to do something - communicate!
They are used to put a point across as part of a learning experience or learning design. In many ways the whole talk of them has become overcomplicated.
The flash file "How a lens can be reversed for close-up work to use its optics to best effect". The learning object doesn't have any significance without an explanation unless you are a photographer interested in close-up photography.
